Canberra

Last weekend I went to Canberra (the capital of Australia) with Cody, Renee and Maryse. Instead of taking the bus we decided to rent a car, since it was the same price but more convinient. We picked it up on Saturday morning and headed towards Canberra. None of us had driven a lot in the left-sided traffic, but we each got to try it during our trip and did pretty well (despite of few minor mistakes lol). We arrived in Canberra at around noon. Our first destination was the National War Museum, where we spent over 2 hours. It presented mostly Australia´s involvement in WW1 and WW2, which was a lot of new information to me, having studiet the wars focusing mostly on European countries and the US. Now I know why they celebrate ANZAC-day: It was an invasion to Turkey by Australian and New Zealand troops during WW1. Even though the invasion was unsuccesful it showed some character and commitment of the soldiers. The museum was big; displaying lots of miniatyre war schemes, weapons and other equipment, and some bigger items, such as tanks, aeroplanes and cars.

A view from the War Memorial - The Old Parliament House

We decided to stick to museums and drove straight to the Australian National Museum. Even though we were already a bit tired (and really hungry) when we got there, we ended up spending some hours explorering the interesting museum. We began with Circa, which is a rotating cinema. The 15-min long performance was pretty cool: It included one big screen and 4 smaller moving screens forming a combination, and some lights. The theme was land/environment/being an Australian. After Circa we walked around in the museum, which is pretty modern. There´s a lot of indigenous art, as well as general stuff about Australia, including an artisty outside area.

The Australian Museum outside area

Renee, Maryse, Codee and I

From the museum we drove to the city centre to look for a convinience store for snacks. We couldn´t find one, but had burgers/muffins/coffee/cookies at a food court at this shopping centre. We discovered stores close even earlier in Canberra than in Sydney! After some more walking we found a supermarket. I´m glad we went there, because they were selling real näkkileipä and hapankorppu! The brand is called Finn Crisp, made by Vaasan & Vaasan Oy. I bought so many packets of them :P Then we drove to our bed&breakfast hostel, which was located a few kilometers from the city centre. We had our own room, equipped with a heater :) We hung around at the hostel for a while, talking to some American guys, before walking to Kingston neighbourhood centre for dinner. The other girls had bought a few bottles of wine before, so we went to this BYO (bring your own = you´re allowed to bring your own drinks, usually only wine) Italian restaurant. My salmon pasta was delicious :P After dinner we decided to spend a relaxing night in our hostel room, just chatting and eating TimTams :)

We woke up at decent time on Sunday morning to attend the breakfast, that was advertised as "famous". It was just coffee/tee, toast, different kinds of cereal and outmeal (my favorite). We were allowed to use the coffee machine and Cody, who had worked at a coffee shop, made me a nice cappucino. We began our day visiting the parliament houses. We went to the New Parliament House first. It´s basically just like any business building with an entrance hall, offices, conference rooms and rooms for the senate and house of representatives. The coolest part of the building was its roof top, from where you can see a good view over the city. There´s also this tower/monument/thingy on its roof, that, to be honest, would fit better to a sports hall, in my opinion. Our next destination was the Old Parliament House, which was more interesting than the new one. It had been built in 1925 (I think) and was greatly influenced by the British style. The senate and house of representatives rooms had royal colors, and their tables and chairs had been made of dark wood. There were a few portrait galleries of some important people, and a kids play room with old fashioned costumes, which we naturally just had to try on ;)

Maryse, I and Cody playing in the Old Parliament House

Since none of us is really interested in politics our parliament houses were pretty short. Then we drove to indoor Sunday markets to take a look at the handicrafts; clothes, candles, lotions, jewellery, wooden stuff, glass arts...pretty much the usual stuff you can find at markets. Being such food lovers we spent most of the time at the food section with all the free samples, before heading to the food court for lunch. They had food of different nationalities and we each had our own things. For dessert we shared two big pancakes, one with berries and one with chocolate. I also bought a mug of self-made apple cider. It wasn´t the kind of alcoholic cider we drink in Finland but more like hot apple juice with cinnamon. I used to drink it in the US (hadn´t found it anywhere else before), and it made me miss all the good times in Michigan!

We had planned to go to visit Telstra Tower for a view over Canberra, but because it was a rather cloudy day we decided not to. Instead we started driving towards Sydney, intending to visit a few wineries on our way home. Our first winery wasn´t a big success: It was under renovation and we were only allowed to enter a small entrance hall. Sampling costed $5, so we decided only to use their toilets. The next winery along the highway was a small one and we got to do some free tasting. Since I´m not a big fan of wine I only had a few sips. Cody ended up buying a bottle of rose wine. I drove from the winery to Sydney, and driving on the left side wasn´t hard at all. I drove an automatic for the first time, and I gotta admit it was convinient not having to switch gears. It started raining before we arrived in Sydney and there were some traffic jams. I made a mistake trying to pay for the road fee :( Maryse had counted the exact amount ($3.80) that I had to throw out of the window to this thingy. But the light didn´t turn green. I got a bit nervous and just drove through, and as we passed the red light a camera light flashed. I hope we won´t get a big fee. Some of the money must´ve gotten stuck in the thing, since we really paid the correct amount. When we arrived in Sydney we had to find our way home, which ended up being rather difficult. After exiting the highway we came to Princess Hwy, but turned the wrong way and drove till we were at the other end of the city. Then we stopped to take a proper look at the map, and Cody went to a nearby convinience store to ask for directions. It wasn´t hard finding home after figuring out we had been driving the wrong way. It took some time and wasted some gas, though. When we got home we celebrated Renar´s Birthday. He´d bought heaps of Indian food for everyone, plus a huge chocolate cake :P So it was a nice ending for a nice weekend :D

(Pictures will be posted later, once I get everyone´s pics to pick out the best ones...)

Bet dinner @ Sydney Tower

Yesterday Tim and I went to the Sydney Tower Restaurant to celebrate the end of last semester, and his victory in our bet. It didn´t end up being cheap for me: I paid $129 altogether for our buffee dinner. But you know, cheap bets are no good! We actually dressed up for the dinner, and it felt nice fitting in to the fancy restaurant. They had even a security check before we were allowed to take the elevator up to the tower. The tower was rotating and we went around 3 times, enjoying the beautiful views over Sydney. Compared to the Orbit Tower, where we went to in June, you can see so much further from the Sydney Tower. It was cool pointing out all the different places in the city, and also seeing things you hadn´t noticed before. We agreed it´d be so cool to have an office in one of the skyscrapers, with a view over the city! (Which is one more good reason to be ambitious and aim for a high position within your company, to earn a window office.) The buffee food was so delicious :P They had everything from seafood to Indian to chicken and steaks... I had kangaroo (which tasted a lot better than when we tried to cook it with Shinae) and camel. We each had 3 full plates of food, followed by dessert. We (naturally, being chocolate lovers!) enjoyed most all the chocolate cakes and pudding. After eating we just sat there for some time, chatting and looking at the view... Unfortunately my pictures didn´t turn out that well because of the reflection from the window. It was a really nice evening indeed, and worth the money, I think :)


Tim and I eating dessert

My best try of taking a picture

Oh, and I won an award for City2Surf. They had this award event today with wine, beer and some proper snacks. People were given awards for good running times, as well as for having the funniest hat, coming up with a best excuse etc... I was the fastest UTS housing female runner and got a medal with my name on it. I quite don´t feel like deserving an award, though, since I didn´t train at all and I didn´t even push myself to run a good time. Oh well, it´s a nice medal :) Other than that, nothing else is new. People have had a few parties here in Geegal, where I´ve been just talking to people and not drinking at all. Our flat seems be the movie centre nowadays! Tim and Renar have heaps of movies and keep getting new ones, and people from other flats come here to watch them with us. I´ve got a feeling I´ll have seen tons of movies by the time I return home. It´s a perfect way to spend dark evenings, though.

I ran City2Surf!!

Instead of setting the topic as "Gold Coast trip got cancelled" I decided to look at the brighter side of the situation. Tim´s brother got sick on Thursday and his doctor didn´t recommed him attending the trip. So since Tim and his mother didn´t wanna leave without him I didn´t wanna travel alone, either. As soon as I found out our trip wasn´t going to happen I ran to the UTS sports office to register for City2Surf (the running event I told about in my last post). The official registration had been closed earlier in the week, but I was promised I could join the UTS team as an unofficial runner, meaning I wouldn´t get a number, a medal or any of the treatment during the race. But I got my team singlet, which was the most important thing!

Since I had thought I wouldn´t be able to participate in City2Surf I hadn´t been running at all during the past 3 months or so. (Gym is much more fun, especially in the winter!) So I had no great ambitions regarding the race - I just wanted to enjoy being a part of such a huge event, and I had planned to alternatively run and walk the 14km-long race. I woke up early this morning to meet with other UTS housing runners at Gumal at 7.30am. We walked together to Hyde Park, that was already filled with runners wearing singlets of different companies, institutions and clubs. It was a beautiful morning that turned out be the most perfect running day :) The weather was really summery: warm (around 23C) and sunny with hardly any wind. We spent some time with some other UTS runners (there were over 200 students representing our uni!) taking pictures and just chatting. I had met these two nice girls at Gumal and was accompanied by them till the start of the race. The amount of people was unbeliable! It was over 46 000 people running/walking. People were divided into four different starting groups depending on their previous times and levels of fitness. Aimee, who works at the UTS Sport Office, kindly gave me a number of her friends who had withdrawn from the race. So I got to be an official runner after all, at the second to last starting group :)

UTS runners at Hyde Park

I ran most of the race on my own. I was accompanied by this guy who coaches the UTS hockey team for a few while, but after I started feeling like I was slowing him down I told him to go and run at his own speed. I took my time to enjoy the athmosphere of the thousands of people being active; either running or walking, enjoying the beautiful views over the sea, seeing some parts of Sydney I hadn´t seen before, being outside in the sunshine... It was really crowded in the beginning of the race and it took me quite a while to pass all the slowest people before I actually could start running. And I kept passing people, as well as people kept passing me, during the whole race. It got a bit easier run after the first 10km, though. The organizers were providing free water and Gatorade along the race, and getting a drink every now and then was refreshing. I didn´t think about my finishing time at all. I ended up finishing in 94min, without feeling tired at all. I kinda wish I had trained for the event, since with a bit of training and more competitive attitude I could´ve done alright. Anyways, I got a medal for participating. And a free Sunday Morning Herald newspaper :)

At the beginning of the race

The race finished at Bondi Beach, which was full of people! Some went for a swim, and a lot of runners just hung out there after finishing. Many organizations had their own marquees providing drinks and food for their runners. UTS had its marguee, too, and it took me almost an hour to find it. After I did, I talked to some other people about the race and ate a sandwitch. Then I took the bus and train back home, and I´ve been here since. I watched a bit of TV, Renar helped me with my tax returns and I tried to read my Human Resource Management textbook but could hardly keep my eyes open so I went to visit Cody instead. And now I´m going to bed!

(I didn´t have my camera at City2Surf but some UTS people took photos that should be posted online sometime soon. I´ll try to add some photos later on...)

International food

I haven´t updated this blog for a while. Let me try to remember all the exciting things I´ve done during the past week... I got 2 free vaccinations - one against meningococcal c (provided by the NSW government) and one against cervical cancer (by the Australian government). It´s funny how excited students get about everything that´s free, even though if it was just vaccinations. I´ve also been working, actually attending all of my lectures and tutorials, and going to the gym.

On Tuesday last week a bunch of us went to Harrys Cafe for lunch. It´s a small kiosk near Kings Cross selling mostly hot dogs and pies. It´s been there since the 50s and for some reason all these celebrities have eaten there. One wall of the kiosk is full of newspaper articles about them visiting the kiosk. I doupt the reason behind its popularity is the food, though - I had a veggie pie with smashed potatoes and to be honest, I can cook better food myself. I guess I had to taste one pie, though, since it´s kind of known as a thing Australians eat. It was a sunny day and we enjoyed eating outside looking at the sea. From the kiosk we walked towards Circular Quay, and walked to the Macquarie Chair, which we think is this formation of white rock shaped as steps and a bench. Since most of us are new in Sydney we stopped a lot to take pictures of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge etc... There were so many people running in the park! They must´ve been training for City2Surf. It´s a big running event from the city to Bondi Beach (14km) taking place this Sunday. It´s going to be thousands of people running/walking/taking part in the event. It´s been widely advertised, and UTS has its own team, too. I really wish I could participate, but we booked our tickets to go to Gold Coast before we knew the date of City2Surf. So instead of running I´ll be enjoying theme parks and (hopefully) warm weather, with Tim, his brother and mother. Not a bad alternative :) Oh, from Circular Quay we walked to the Rocks Cafe for cappucinos before everyone pretty much spread around to do their own thing.


Maryse, Inga, Sharon, Camilla, Zain, Ed and me in front of Harrys Cafe


Finger Wharf

On Wednesday after work I asked Mel to go out to dinner with me. Since both us had seen this interesting looking African restaurant in Newtown we decided to try it. Neither of us remembered its exact location, though, so we ended up walking past it all the way to the train station, before turning back and finally finding it. The walk was worth it: The food was different and delicious! We shared a side dish of thin bread/pancakes and 2 delicious sauces with broccolli and other veggies. For main dish we had African style rice (yellow), marinated lamb, cuscus, sauce, more veggies... The food was cheap and so good. I´m definately going there again! Kwan joined us a bit later and we went to this ice cream place for dessert. Italians really know how to make ice cream that just melts in your mouth :P And Mel liked their tables and chairs made of plastic in different colours, that matched our spoons :) From the ice cream place Mel joined Kwan to go to hang out in his place. I was too tired so I just took the bus home and went straight to bed.

Aww... I don´t feel like writing anymore. I´ll just go to bed and read a chapter of my financing course book. I´ll miss a lecture because of our Gold Coast trip and don´t wanna fall behind. I´ll add some pictures later.

New semester, new people...

I´m soooooo tired... I went to the gym this morning and straight to work at the Broadway store from there. It was so quiet. I just kept refolding clothes to stop me from falling asleep. If it was up to me I´d love to have a quiet evening today; just watching a movie or reading a book. But people are having a party here in Geegal and I feel kinda obligated to participate, or at least show my face :) I´ve been working for over 30 hours this week, which has made me kinda unsocial getting to know all the new people that have just moved here. (A bunch of exchange students left after last semester so we´ve got all these new residents in Geegal.) We've got three new people at our flat: Sharon from Australia, Zain from Singapore and Emad from Jordan. They all seem really nice and I´ve got a good feeling about this upcoming semester :) However, I still miss Carla a bit. We hung out so much together; going to places, watching TV, cooking together, shopping, just chatting... Fortunately Finland and Holland aren´t too far apart, and we´ve already made preliminary plans to visit each other :)

So, besides working, what all have I been up to... Uni started this week. I´ve had a bit of a hassle with my subjects. Chinese got cancelled (shif, I was already getting really excited about learning it) so I had to substitute it with another subject. Here you can´t just go to Wedoodi and enroll to any subjects, like at the LUT, but you have to send e-requests and wait for answers. I decided to take Human Resource Management as my third subject. Because of enrolling so late I missed the first lecture, though. I also missed the Financial System because of work, but I went to Economics of the Firm. It seems like an interesting subject, the lecturer coming from Ukraine and having studiet at the US. I´ll have to spend some time tomorrow to catch up with the missed subjects.

On Wednesday last week I took part in a pub crawl that was organized for all new international students. We started with a few drinks (Baileys coffee, yum!) at home, and Kwan joined us from work. Then we took a bus to the Rocks, to our first pub. The whole pub crawl went only to 3 pubs, which I think is such a small number compared to pub crawls in Finland. It was so crowded everywhere! It was fun seeing all the new people and getting to know some of them, even though I don´t think I could remember most of them if I met them now. Kwan and I kept buying these vodkas mixed with coke or lemonade (the cheapest drinks after beer) and I drank quite a few shots, as well. It seems like I´ve developed a tradition of drinking certain shots with certain people: Definately tequila with Cameron, Baileys/sanbucca/anything sweet with Tim, and I had a shot of plain vodka with Carlos. He´s a big fan of Finlandia Vodka (thanks to Antti from LUT who is an ex-geegalian) and we keep talking about it. Unfortunately they didn´t have Finlandia at the pub we were at (such slackers!) so we had to settle with something else. Anyways, we spent time just hanging around, chatting to old and new people and listening to music. I was fairly drunk after around 6 drinks and 5 shots lol. We took the cab home and I went straight to bed, after complaining about the cold weather. Some people stayed up, and Carlos fell asleep on the couch. They came up with an excellent idea of painting his face with make-up and the pictures of him are so funny! Once again I discovered drinking isn´t really my thing anymore, though. I didn´t have hang over the next day but I felt tired and got nothing done. The weather was beautiful, though, and I went to Victoria park to read a book for a couple of hours.

Well, now I´m off to dowstairs to cook some dinner before the party... I´ll write more tomorrow.